The Duke's Dear Rhea
by Gutter Dreams
Summary: Mistakes writhe and fears thrive in a crystal paradise. [For the Halloween Terror Souls event]


It scrapes its sword against my door again. It is the same one. It always is.

Tiny eyes like sharp pinpricks and fangs like a venomous demon.

It is never even the both of them. Only ever the one.

My cell is small and dark, the bars coated with brilliant crystals, so many that I can barely peer around them to see when it is approaching to drag its sword along them. It makes such a terrible scraping sound.

I see it coming more in my mind's eye than I see its lumbering form round up the stairs. Up the stairs from those horrible wailing cries. I cannot see so far down through the narrow gaps of my cell, but I can imagine that there are countless young women, much like myself, trapped and weeping, crying for help that will never arrive. I refuse to weep. Vince and Nico have taken all sorrow and ripped it from my drying soul in the Tomb of Giants.

I was wrong. It is the first one. The kind one; the one that prefers to angle its swaying reptile face to glance at my being before continuing peacefully on its way. Its partner never lurks too far behind, however.

When this one stalks by, it glances in a similar manner, to see that I am still confined and more importantly alive, the fiend, but it also raises its magnificent snake's head, scales glinting wondrous colors off the shining crystals of my prison, presses its maw against the gems, and hisses spit and venom that splatter against my wooden floor and cling to the bars by its mouth.

I draw my feet tight to my chest and gaze up at its seething face, for I have nothing much else to do as I await my inevitable end in this nightmare. Our eyes meet, and I ask it the same things I ask it every time it stops to harass me - where am I? Why have you taken me here? What do you want with me?

It never answers. I suspect it does not know how to. However, it raises its blood-stained sword and bangs once, twice on the door, to make me flinch and gasp and draw my feet even closer to me, before it turns and follows its partner.

They follow the same path, time and time again, almost as if stuck in an endless loop of serving their master. Almost like I must suffer the endless loop of their path.

In a way, I almost look forward to it. It is the only outside interaction I am rewarded now.

* * *

><p>His gold embroidered robes were silken around his iron arms when he snatched me up in the Church. Six eyes, the rumors say, so the Dragon himself can watch.<p>

The Undead man acquired every last bit of knowledge about Miracles I had to offer, a diligent, curious soul, and I can swear that as soon as he whisked down the lift to go to the grand bonfire below, there was a laugh from somewhere behind me, trickling down as if the culprit were high upon a ledge. I could not even turn before the swell of magic took to the air around me and his arms snatched me up. Just as the legends say.

The Snatchers. Employed to steal away young maidens in the dark for wicked experiments. Even in Thoroland there are horrible tales of them. The young maidens they take can never hope to see the light of the sky again, they say.

I tried to scream, truly I did, but one arm wound itself around my waist, the hard handle of his magic trident biting into my ribs through my white robes, and the other found its way up to cover my mouth, pressing hard against my lips and nose. I felt his tall presence behind me, squeezing close against my back and leaning his high helmet around my shoulder to gaze at my covered face with four of his eyes. The other two gazed downwards, to my robed body. I felt disgusted.

I can recall his head nodding once, as if some question had been answered just by looking at me, and then he leaned back, swayed against me as if we were taking part in some dance, and, in the blink of an eye, we were gone.

I do not remember much of where he took me. The longer his hand remained over my mouth, the longer my breath failed me, and the blearier everything became. I knew we were not in the Church any longer. That much was certain. I knew that I was a fool for not doing something sooner, for not taking out my talisman, for not attempting to fight back in any way. Perhaps that is why even the most able-bodied of maidens is snatched away if a Snatcher so chooses to come and take her. There is something about them. Something about their eyes that charms one so completely... One can sense the power in them, the wanting, the jealousy. The pain. I was immobilized by it.

There were books where we were, I remember. Countless stacks of books and relics and tomes, all manners of colors and shapes and sizes. Staircases that wound and stretched on for what seemed like eternity. Ceilings so high that they stroked the heavens. So many books, it could drive one mad.

Other Snatchers stood round and stared at me. It all delighted me, in my dazed stupor. While eyes belonging to a Being high above the room stalked my progress, the Snatcher's arms held me close to the cold body concealed beneath his robes, and I took everything in with the wide, confused eyes of a newborn piglet. A dull sow nearing unconsciousness.

At some point, I believed that he picked me up in his arms like a gentleman knight - later, when my senses come back to me, I will remember that he dragged me by the neck, kicking and screaming. He carried me onto a beautiful wooden lift that we rode up, up to a twinkling attic. Crystals shined and sparkled, arrested my eyes, like he had swooped me away to a castle carved of precious gems. Down a narrow pathway, up some stairs... The crystals grew more frequent, coating the floor. The farther he took me, the thicker the crystals became; they hung from the archways and clung to the walls. I looked up at him and I truly believed, in my dream-state, that they covered his being. He was the most beautiful thing... My Snatcher was a brilliant crystal personified.

However, little did I know, even this image was about to be rivaled. For, beyond a fog wall he carried - dragged - me through, there awaited a creature in a bright crystal cavern. A creature so beautiful that its large, smooth wings shone all manner of colors, pink and yellow and blue, like a rising sun, and its grand stature made it seem like a God. Like a Miracle.

I caught only a glimpse of this creature, a creature I now know to be the Dragon, the Duke, before my consciousness left me. My Snatcher held my sagging body up to Him like a present and a glowing hand reached out, before my eyes closed and my mind went blank for a long, long while.

When I awoke again, my Snatcher was gone, the Duke was a distant memory, and the man-serpent was banging its shield against my cell door and hissing out nasty sounds I could never hope to decipher.

* * *

><p>Often times I lay upon my side on the hard wood and stare out at their moving legs for a while. Other times, I stand by the door and look out at as much as I can, sure to duck away when any walks by. There are tomes here, too, I spy along the towering walls, and many empty cells. Empty.<p>

I hear weeping almost always. The weeping of women.

It makes me anxious over time and spurs me into action. After long, so long, too long, the terrible serpents walk by on their endless rounds and, when the last one stops as it's prone to, I throw myself against crystal and metal in a wild fit of desperation. I cannot help myself. My weak arms thrust out through the bars and I grope at its waist, feeling rough scales against my gloves. The cloth it wears around its waist as clothing makes my white glove-tips dirty.

I am so close! So close! I can glimpse the keys it keeps tied under the cloth, and I am so close!

Unfortunately, it is faster than I. It grabs one of my searching arms by the wrist so hard that I fear my hand will snap off at the joint. A cry of pain leaves me as I'm yanked against the bars, crystal scratching and digging into the skin on my face. The serpent begins to loosen its grip, allowing me to lean away, but just as it does, it yanks on my sore limb again, and my face slams against the sharp crystals. It does this repeatedly; I lose track of how many times. The crystals begin to shine a pretty red as I scream.

My body slumps to the floor when the guard tires of me and decides to let go. I reach up with shaking hands to feel at my face, but it stings so badly that I cannot even blink without wanting to weep. I do not, however. I refuse to.

I stay where I land, motionless, sitting near the door, letting the serpent hiss and prod at me with the hilt of its sword, and watching red seep through my white gloves.

Time does not pass here, at any rate. Time does not pass anywhere in Lordran. It is a sad, unfortunate thing, but it is reality.

I have no choice but to sit by the door for as long as I can bear, until a final prod is enough, and I roll away to the far wall. Even then, the bloody demon sticks its sword through the bars and still attempts to harass me.

It is unbearable to the point where I soon foolishly wish my Snatcher in shining armor would come back and whisk me away again.

I touch my cut face, and I think of him.

More so, I think of my darling lost Clerics.

We were so close to our goal.

To our Rite.

I prayed that by some miracle we might succeed and never hollow. I still pray, long after hope has been lost.

Nico and Vince...

Vereor Nox.

* * *

><p>I see a terrible thing one day. "One day".<p>

I glimpse it as it slithers up the stairs. A cruel abomination.

Blue and slimy, with writhing tentacles and tails. It can barely move.

It weeps with the voice of a woman as the serpents grab it and drag it back down the stairs.

Even after it is gone, it's image swells and engulfs me.

* * *

><p>I realize many things after I see what I will soon become. It is not difficult to determine that what I saw is what becomes of the young maidens. I know the stories of the Duke's madness. I've heard the weeping. There are no young women trapped like myself. There are no young women at all.<p>

Any moment something could come and take me away to be transformed... Any moment.

I stop bothering with the serpent at my door because it is of no consequence to me. It will never help me escape.

I rip my gloves and my flesh when I attempt to break off pieces of crystals from the metal bars, grasping at the smooth surfaces of the fixed gems. The crystals remain stuck to the metal, as if they are fused into one form, like time, or magic, has made them inseparable. Curses!

I am losing my humanity here. I know I am. One can only sit for so long in one place and know that demise is coming. I can't, I can't. I can't escape. I do not see any way to. No chime to cast Miracles. No Gods to answer my prayers.

Still, I refuse to weep. I refuse to weep.

Oh Gods.

Oh Petrus.

* * *

><p>He starts me from a slumber at one point.<p>

His beauty summons my attention, fully and completely. I almost know He is here with every sense in my body.

The flow of time seems to stop, even more so than it already is frozen. It becomes encased in crystals, fused by magic. I am low to the floor, laying down, I think, but I can see all the way down the stairs. All the way past the beautiful, disfigured maidens, past my serpent guards, past my shining Snatcher, past-

His hand curls around my upper torso and lifts me up, up... Past the roof of my cell and closer to Him. The entire room is shining and sparkling, and His skin is smooth, like the softest silk. Like it's made of tiny, polished crystals.

It is.

I can look into them and see my reflection looking back. My white robe and my young face are etched into His skin. A crystal dragon. Who could ever imagine such a thing?

He lifts me higher still, so that I may examine His perfect wings. The thin, colorful things look as if they could brush my face so gently that I would not even know them to be there.

They do. I barely feel them at all.

I ascend in His hand even higher, granted permission to gaze upon His face. His dragon's snout and His crystal blue eyes. A soul races towards death in His eyes. This soul steps upon thin air inch by inch until a careless move sends it plummeting towards its demise. He is morbidly pleased at this, and so too am I.

He opens His mouth, to speak something unto me, but I do not quite catch what it is. His wing continues to caress my cheek the whole while.

He draws me in close to His mouth, like He will devour me, but whispers something that rings like the chiming of a jewel.

"Open..."

I clutch at His silken jaw with tiny hands and bid Him to repeat. His wing moves underneath my robes to caress my Darksign. It aches.

"Open."

Please.

Tell me.

He splits my body in two with a single claw.

"Your..."

I open my eyes and find that I have been rubbing my face against my cell door and carving my skin away on the sharp crystals. Bits of flesh are stuck to them. There is a puddle of blood that has dripped down and soaked into the wood and the hem of my robe.

* * *

><p>His snake head presses against the crystals. Against decaying pieces of my flesh.<p>

Not its. His.

Everything is living here, in this perfect prison. The bars of my cell bend under my willing fingertips, and the wooden floor bleeds from time to time, like it is suffering some great pain. With life comes pain, unfortunately. The entire tower is one painful, living, breathing mistake. But it's absolutely beautiful.

I do not understand why the twisted maidens weep so. They are almost beautiful enough now to match their Creator. Almost.

I have been waiting for the time to come for me, but it never does. I wait and wait and wait. Wait for the jewels to carve me up. Wait for the serpent to open my cell door and for my lovely Snatcher to take me to Him. Await my transformation.

It never seems to come.

Six eyes, they say, so that He may see me well. See me now, oh Creator. See the soft flesh beneath my robes, my breasts, my hips, my womanly parts, beyond my skin, my scales like stone, and deep into my crystalline soul. See how my face has hardened now, blood and scars turning to jewels over time and making my cheeks immortal. I cut them on the crystals just enough. Cut every part of me with a blade of gemstones now and call me perfect. Primordial.

Everlasting.

Give me what you could never have.

* * *

><p>They do not come anymore.<p>

He does not come anymore.

He does not need to.

He is within my tomb.

The blood in the wood is shining bright blue.

* * *

><p>When my cell door opens, there is wetness on my cheeks.<p>

When He breaks and shatters, wrenched away from the scarlet bars He was fused to, there are drops of purification.

He who separates me from my Lord will pay dearly.

Become a corpse rotting from within of crystals.

A dull sword slices part of my everlasting face away, and I cannot help but weep at the beauty of immortality.


End file.
